Antichristus, a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder, of the pope using the temporal power to grant authority to a ruler contributing generously to the Catholic Church
Quid pro quo ('what for what' in Latin) is a Latin phrase used in English
to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is
contingent upon the other; "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar
meanings include: "give and take", "tit for tat",
"you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "one hand washes the
other". Other languages use other phrases for the same purpose.
Origins
The Latin phrase quid pro quo originally implied that something had been substituted, as in this instead of that.
Early usage by English speakers followed the original Latin meaning,
with occurrences in the 1530s where the term referred to substituting
one medicine for another, whether unintentionally or fraudulently. By
the end of the same century, quid pro quo evolved into a more current use to describe equivalent exchanges.
In 1654, the expression quid pro quo was used to generally refer to something done for personal gain or with the expectation of reciprocity in the text The Reign of King Charles: An History Disposed into Annalls, with a somewhat positive connotation. It refers to the covenant with Christ as something "that prove not a nudum pactum, a naked contract, without quid pro quo." Believers in Christ have to do their part in return, namely "foresake the devil and all his works".
Quid pro quo would go on to be used, by English speakers
in legal and diplomatic contexts, as an exchange of equally valued goods
or services and continues to be today.
The Latin phrase corresponding to the usage of quid pro quo in English is do ut des (Latin for "I give, so that you may give"). Other languages continue to use do ut des for this purpose, while quid pro quo (or its equivalent qui pro quo,
as widely used in Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese) still keeps
its original meaning of something being unwittingly mistaken, or
erroneously told or understood, instead of something else.
Legal meanings
Common law
In common law, quid pro quo
indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for
something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the
transaction is in question. A contract must involve consideration:
that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of
value. For example, when buying an item of clothing or a gallon of milk,
a pre-determined amount of money is exchanged for the product the
customer is purchasing; therefore, they have received something but have
given up something of equal value in return.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the one-sidedness of a contract is covered by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
and various revisions and amendments to it; a clause can be held void
or the entire contract void if it is deemed unfair (that is to say,
one-sided and not a quid pro quo); however this is a civil law and not a common law matter.
Political donors must be resident in the UK. There are fixed
limits to how much they may donate (£5000 in any single donation), and
it must be recorded in the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests or at the House of Commons Library; the quid pro quo is strictly not allowed, that a donor can by his donation have some personal gain. This is overseen by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. There are also prohibitions on donations being given in the six weeks before the election for which it is being campaigned. It is also illegal for donors to support party political broadcasts,
which are tightly regulated, free to air, and scheduled and allotted to
the various parties according to a formula agreed by Parliament and
enacted with the Communications Act 2003.
United States
In the United States, if the exchange appears excessively one sided, courts in some jurisdictions may question whether a quid pro quo did actually exist and the contract may be held void.
In cases of "quid pro quo" business contracts, the term takes on a
negative connotation because major corporations may cross ethical
boundaries in order to enter into these very valuable, mutually
beneficial, agreements with other major big businesses. In these deals,
large sums of money are often at play and can consequently lead to
promises of exclusive partnerships indefinitely or promises of
distortion of economic reports.
In the U.S., lobbyists
are legally entitled to support candidates that hold positions with
which the donors agree, or which will benefit the donors. Such conduct
becomes bribery only when there is an identifiable exchange between the contribution and official acts, previous or subsequent, and the term quid pro quo denotes such an exchange.
Sexual harassment
In United States labor law, workplace sexual harassment can take two forms; either "Quid pro quo" harassment or hostile work environment harassment.
"Quid pro quo" harassment takes place when a supervisor requires sex,
sexual favors, or sexual contact from an employee/job candidate as a
condition of their employment. Only supervisors who have the authority
to make tangible employment actions (i.e. hire, fire, promote, etc.),
can commit "Quid pro quo" harassment. The supervising harasser must have "immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee.”
The power dynamic between a supervisor and subordinate/job candidate
is such that a supervisor could use their position of authority to
extract sexual relations based on the subordinate/job candidate's need
for employment. Co-workers and non-decision making supervisors cannot
engage in "Quid pro quo" harassment with other employees, but an
employer could potentially be liable for the behavior of these employees
under a hostile work environment claim. The harassing employee's
status as a supervisor is significant because if the individual is found
to be a supervisor then the employing company can be held vicariously liable for the actions of that supervisor. Under Agency law,
the employer is held responsible for the actions of the supervisor
because they were in a position of power within the company at the time
of the harassment.
To establish a prima facie
case of "Quid pro quo" harassment, the plaintiff must prove that they
were subjected to "unwelcome sexual conduct", that submission to such
conduct was explicitly or implicitly a term of their employment, and
submission to or rejection of this conduct was used as a basis for an
employment decision, as follows:
Unwelcome Sexual Conduct: A court will look at the employee's
conduct to determine whether the supervisor's sexual advances were
unwelcome. In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson,
the Court opined that voluntary sex between an employee and supervisor
does not establish proof that a supervisor's sexual advances were
welcome. The Court also stated that evidence of the subordinate
employee's provocative dress and publicly expressed sexual fantasies can
be introduced as evidence if relevant.
Term of Employment: A term or condition of employment means that the
subordinate/job candidate must acquiesce to the sexual advances of the
supervisor in order to maintain/be hired for the job. In essence, the
sexual harassment becomes a part of their job. For example, a supervisor
promises an employee a raise if she/he goes out on a date with the
supervisor, or tells an employee he/she will be fired if the employee
doesn't sleep with him/her.
Tangible Employment Action: A tangible employment action must take
place as a result of the employee's submission or refusal of
supervisor's advances. In Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth,
the Court stated that tangible employment action amounted to “a
significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing
to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities,
or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.” It is
important to note that only supervisors can make tangible employment
actions, since they have the company's authority to do so. The Court
also held that unfulfilled threats by a supervisor of an adverse
employment decision are not sufficient to establish a "Quid pro quo,"
but were relevant for the purposes of a Hostile work environment claim. Additionally, The Supreme Court has held that Constructive dismissal
can count as a tangible employment action (thus allowing a quid pro quo
sexual harassment claim) if the actions taken by a supervisor created a
situation where a "reasonable person ... would have felt compelled to
resign."
Once the plaintiff has established these three factors, the employer
can not assert an affirmative defense (such as the employer had a sexual
harassment policy in place to prevent and properly respond to issues of
sexual harassment), but can only dispute whether the unwelcome conduct
did not in fact take place, the employee was not a supervisor, and that
there was no tangible employment action involved.
Although these terms are popular among lawyers and scholars, neither "hostile work environment" nor "quid pro quo" are found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of race,
sex, color, national origin, and religion. The Supreme Court noted in Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth
that these terms are useful in differentiating between cases where
threats of harassment are "carried out and those where they are not or
absent altogether," but otherwise these terms serve a limited purpose.
Therefore, sexual harassment can take place by a supervisor, and an
employer can be potentially liable, even if that supervisor's behavior
does not fall within the criteria of a "Quid pro quo" harassment claim.
Quid pro quo was frequently mentioned during the first impeachment inquiry into U.S. president Donald Trump, in reference to the charge that his request for an investigation of Hunter Biden was a precondition for the delivery of congressionally authorized military aid during a call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Other meanings
For languages that come from Latin such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and French, Quid pro quo
is used to define a misunderstanding or blunder made by the
substituting of one thing for another. The Oxford English Dictionary
describes this alternative definition in English as "now rare". The Vocabolario Treccani (an authoritative dictionary published by the Encyclopedia Treccani),
under the entry "qui pro quo", states that the latter expression
probably derives from the Latin used in late medieval pharmaceutical
compilations. This can be clearly seen from the work appearing precisely under this title, "Tractatus quid pro quo," (Treatise on what substitutes for what) in the medical collection headed up by Mesue cum expositione Mondini super Canones universales... (Venice: per Joannem & Gregorium de gregorijs fratres, 1497), folios 334r-335r. Some examples of what could be used in place of what in this list are: Pro uva passa dactili ('in place of raisins, [use] dates'); Pro mirto sumac ('in place of myrtle, [use] sumac'); Pro fenugreco semen lini
('in place of fenugreek, [use] flaxseed'), etc. This list was an
essential resource in the medieval apothecary, especially for occasions
when certain essential medicinal substances were not available.
Satirist Ambrose Bierce defined political influence as "a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid", making a pun on quid as a form of currency.
Quid is slang for pounds, the British currency, originating on this expression as in: if you want the quo you'll need to give them some quid, which explains the plural without s, as in I gave them five hundred quid.
Conflicts of interest (COIs) often arise in academic publishing.
Such conflicts may cause wrongdoing and make it more likely. Ethical
standards in academic publishing exist to avoid and deal with conflicts
of interest, and the field continues to develop new standards. Standards
vary between journals and are unevenly applied. According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,
"[a]uthors have a responsibility to evaluate the integrity, history,
practices and reputation of the journals to which they submit
manuscripts".
Conflicts of interest increase the likelihood of biases arising;
they can harm the quality of research and the public good (even if
disclosed). Conflicts of interest can involve research sponsors, authors, journals, journal staff, publishers, and peer reviewers.
Avoidance, disclosure, and tracking
The
avoidance of conflicts of interest and the changing of the structure of
institutions to make them easier to avoid are frequently advocated for.
Some institutional ethics policies ban academics from entering into
specific types of COIs, for instance by prohibiting them from accepting
gifts from companies connected with their work. Education in ethical COI management is also a tool for avoiding COI problems.
Disclosure of COIs has been debated since the 1980s; there is a general consensus favouring disclosure. There is also a view that COI concerns and some of the measures taken to reduce them are excessive.
Criticisms of disclosure policies include:
authors disclosing COIs may feel pressured to present their research in a more biased manner to compensate;
disclosure may discourage beneficial academic–industrial collaboration;
disclosure may decrease public trust in research;
researchers who have disclosed their COIs may feel license to behave immorally;
disclosure may be taken as a sign of honesty or expertise and thus increase trust;
some types of COI may be more likely than others to go unnoticed or unreported;
awareness of a COI does not make people immune to being influenced
by bias; generally, people do not sufficiently discount biased advice;
disclosure discourages the judging of work purely on its merits;
disclosure causes more intense scrutiny for wrongdoing.
While disclosure is widely favoured, other COI management measures
have narrower support. Some publications hold the opinion that certain
COIs disqualify people from certain research roles; for instance, that
the testing of medicines should be done only by people who neither
develop medicines nor are funded by their manufacturers.
Conflicts of interest have also been considered as a statistical factor confounding evidence, which must therefore be measured as accurately as possible and analysed, requiring machine-readable disclosure.
Codes of conduct
Journals have individual ethics policies and codes of conduct; there are also some cross-journal voluntary standards.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) publishes Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals,
and a list of journals that pledge to follow it. The guideline lays
down detailed rules for conflict-of-interest declaration by authors. It
also says; "All participants in the peer-review and publication
process—not only authors but also peer reviewers, editors, and editorial
board members of journals—must consider their conflicts of interest
when fulfilling their roles in the process of article review and
publication and must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as
potential conflicts of interest".
These recommendations have been criticized and revised to remove
loopholes allowing the non-disclosure of conflicts of interest.
The Council of Science Editors
publishes a White Paper on publication ethics. Citing the ICMJE that
"all participants in the peer-review and publication process must
disclose all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts
of interest", it highly recommends COI disclosure for sponsors, authors,
reviewers, journals, and editorial staff.
The Good Publication Practice (GPP) guidelines, covering
industry-sponsored medical research, are published by the International
Society of Medical Publication Professionals.
The Committee on Publication Ethics
(COPE) publishes a code of conduct stating, "[t]here must be clear
definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling
conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and
publishers, whether identified before or after publication".
The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association's Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing is intended to separate legitimate journals from predatory publishers and defines a minimal standard; clear and clearly stated COI policies.
A 2009 US Institute of Medicine
report on medical COIs states that conflict-of-interest policies should
be judged on their proportionality, transparency, accountability, and
fairness; they should be effective, efficient, and targeted, known and
understood, clearly identify who is responsible for monitoring,
enforcement, and amendment, and apply equally to everyone involved.
Review by conflict-of-interest committees is also recommended, and the
lack of transparency and COI declaration in developing COI guidelines
criticized.
As of 2015, journal COI policies often have no enforcement provisions. COI disclosure obligations have been legislated; one example of such legislation is the US Physician Payments Sunshine Act, but these laws do not apply specifically to journals.
COIs by agent
COIs of journals
Journals are often not transparent about their institutional COIs, and do not apply the same disclosure standards to themselves as they do to their authors.
Four out of six major general medical journals that were contacted for a
2010 COI study refused to provide information about the proportion of
their income that derived from advertisements, reprints, and
industry-supported supplements, citing policies on non-disclosure of
financial information.
Owners and governing bodies
The owner of an academic journal has ultimate power over the hiring and firing of editorial staff; editors' interests in pleasing their employers conflict with some of their other editorial interests. Journals are also more likely to accept papers by authors who work for the journals' hosting institutions.
Some journals are owned by publishers. When journals print
reviews of books published by their own publishers, they rarely (as of
2013) add COI disclosures. The publishers' interest in maximizing profit will often conflict with academic interests or ethical standards. In the case of closed-access
publications, publishers' desire for high subscription income may
conflict with an editorial desire for broader access and readership.
There have been multiple mass resignations of editorial boards over such
conflicts, which are often followed by the editorial board founding a new, non-profit journal to compete with their former one.
Some journals are owned by academic societies and professional organisations. Leading journals can be very profitable and there is often friction about revenue between the journal and the member society that owns it.
Some academic societies and professional organisations are themselves
funded by membership fees and/or donations. If the owners benefit
financially from donations, the journal has a conflict between its
financial interest in satisfying the donors—and therefore the owners—and
its journalistic interests. Such COIs with industry donors have drawn
criticism.
Reprints
A reprint is a copy of an individual article that is printed and sold as a separate product by the journal or its publisher or agent. Reprints are often used in pharmaceutical marketing and other medical marketing of products to doctors. This gives journals an incentive to produce good marketing material. Journals sell reprints at very high profit margins, often around 70%, as of 2010.
A journal may sell a million dollars worth of reprints of a single
article if, for example, it is a large industry-funded clinical trial. The selling of reprints can bring in over 40% of a journal's income.
If a journal is accused of managing COIs badly, its reputation is harmed.
The impact factor
of a journal is often used to rate it, although this practice is widely
criticized. A journal will generally want to increase its impact factor
in hope of gaining more subscriptions, better submissions, and more
prestige.
As of 2010, industry-funded papers generally get cited more than
others; this is probably due in part to industry-paid publicity.
Some journals engage in coercive citation,
in which an editor forces an author to add extraneous citations to an
article to inflate the impact factor of the journal in which the
extraneous papers were published.
A survey found that 86% of academics consider coercive citation
unethical but 20% have experienced it. Journals appear to preferentially
target younger authors and authors from non-English-speaking
countries. Journals published by for-profit companies used coercive
citation more than those published by university presses.
Journals may find it difficult to correct and retract erroneous papers after publication because of legal threats.
Advertising
Many
academic journals contain advertising. The portion of a journal's
revenue coming from advertising varies widely, according to one small
study, from over 50% to 1%. As of 2010, advertising revenues for academic journals are generally falling.
A 1995 survey of North American journal editors found that 57% felt
responsible for the honesty of the pharmaceutical advertisements they
ran and 40% supported peer-review of such advertisements. An interest in increasing advertising revenue can conflict with interests in journalistic independence and truthfulness.
As of 2002, some journals publish supplements
that often either cover an industry-funded conference or are "symposia"
on a given topic. These supplements are often subsidized by an external
sponsor with a financial interest in the outcome of research in that
field; for instance, a drug manufacturer or food industry group. Such
supplements can have guest editors, are often not peer-reviewed to the same standard as the journal itself, and are more likely to use promotional language. Many journals do not publish sponsored supplements. Small-circulation journals are more likely to publish supplements than large, high-prestige journals.
Indications that an article was published in a supplement may be fairly
subtle; for instance, a letter "s" added to a page number.
The ICMJE code of conduct specifically addresses guest-editor
COIs; "Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about
potential conflicts of interests related to their own commitments and
those of their journal staff. Guest editors should follow these same
procedures." It also states that the usual journal editor must maintain
full control and responsibility and that "Editing by the funding
organization should not be permitted".
The US Food and Drug Administration states that supplement articles should not be used as medical-marketing reprints but as of 2009 it had no legal authority to prohibit the practice.
Publishers
Publishers may not be strongly motivated to ensure the quality of their journals. In the Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine case, the printer Elsevier Australia put out six journal-like publications containing articles about drugs made by the Merck Group, which paid for and controlled the publications.
COIs of journal staff
Personal
conflicts of interest faced by journal staff are individual. If a
person leaves the journal—unlike the COIs of journals as
institutions—their personal COIs will go with them.
As of 2015, COIs of journal staff are less commonly reported than those of authors.
For instance, one 2009 World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
policy document states, "Some journals list editors' competing interests
on their website but this is not a standard practice". The ICMJE, however, requires that the COIs of editors and journal staff be regularly declared and published.
One 2017 Open Payments study of influential US medical journals found half of the editors received payments from industry; another study that used a different sample of editors reported two-thirds. As of 2002, systems for reporting wrongdoing by editors often do not exist.
Many journals have policies limiting COIs staff can enter into;
for instance, accepting gifts of travel, accommodation, or hospitality
may be prohibited. As of 2016, such policies are rarely published. Most journals do not offer COI training; as of 2015, many journals report a desire for better guidance on COI policy.
COIs of peer reviewers
The ICJME recommendations require peer reviewers to disclose conflicts of interest.
Half to two-thirds of journals, depending on subject area, did not
follow this recommendation in the first two decades of the 21st century. As of 2017,
if a peer reviewer fails to disclose a conflict of interest, the paper
will generally not be withdrawn, corrected, or re-reviewed; the reviews,
however, may be reassessed.
If peer reviewers are anonymous, their COIs cannot be published.
Some experiments with publishing the names of reviewers have been
undertaken; in others, the identities of reviewers were disclosed to
authors, allowing authors to identify COIs. Some journals now have an open review
process in which everything, including the peer reviews and the names
of the reviewers, and editor and author comment, is published
transparently online.
The duties of peer review may conflict with social interests or
institutional loyalties; to avoid such COIs, reviewers may be excluded
if they have some forms of COI, such as having collaborated with the
author.
Readers of academic papers may spot errors, informally or as part
of formal post-publication peer review. Academics submitting
corrections to papers are often asked by the publishers to pay over
1,000 US dollars for the publication of their corrections.
COIs of article authors
Authors of individual papers
may face conflicts with their duty to report truthfully and
impartially. Financial, career, political, and social interests are all
sources of conflict.
Authors' institutional interests become sources of conflict when the
research might harm the institution's finances or offend the author's
superiors.
Many journals require authors to self-declare their conflicts of
interest when submitting a paper; they also ask specific questions about
conflicts of interest. The questions vary substantially between
journals.
Author declarations, however, are rarely verified by the journal. As of
2018, "most editors say it's not their job to make sure authors reveal
financial conflicts, and there are no repercussions for those who
don't".
Even if a conflict of interest is reported by a reader after
publication, COPE does not suggest independent investigation, as of 2017.
As a result, as of 2018, authors often fail to declare their conflicts of interest. Rates of nondisclosure vary widely in reported studies.The COPE retraction guidelines state, "Retractions are also used
to alert readers to ... failure to disclose a major competing interest
likely to influence interpretations or recommendations". As of 2018, however, if an author fails to disclose a COI, the paper will usually be corrected; it will not usually be retracted.
Paper retractions, notifications to superiors, and publication bans are
possible. Non-disclosure incidents harm academic careers. Authors are held to have collective responsibility for the contents of an article;
if one author fails to declare a conflict of interest, the peer review
process may be deemed compromised and the whole paper retracted.
The publisher may charge authors substantial fees for retracting
papers, even in cases of honest error, giving them a financial
disincentive to correct the record.
Public registries of author COIs have been suggested. Authors face administrative burdens in declaring COIs; standardized declarations or a registry could reduce these.
Ghost authors and non-contributing authors
Ghost authorship,
where a writer contributes but is not credited, has been estimated to
affect a significant proportion of the research literature. Honorary
authorship, where an author is credited but did not contribute, is more
common.
Being named as an author on many papers is good for an academic's
career. Failure to adhere to authorship standards is rarely punished.
To avoid misreported authorship, a requirement that all authors
describe the contribution they made to the study ("movie-style credits")
has been advocated for. Ghostwriters may be legally liable for fraud.
The ICMJE criteria for authorship require that authors contribute:
Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the
work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the
work; and
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
Final approval of the version to be published; and
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring
that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the
work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The ICMJE requires that "All those designated as authors should meet all
four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should
be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria
should be acknowledged."
Academics who have had publication ethics training and those who are
aware of the ICMJE authorship criteria are more stringent in their
concepts of authorship and are more likely to consider breaches of
authorship as misconduct, as are more junior researchers. Awareness is
low; one study found only about half of researchers had read the ICJME
criteria.
COIs of study sponsors
If
a study requires outside funding, this can be a major source of
conflicting interests; for instance in cases where the manufacturer of a
drug is funding a study into its safety and efficacy or where the sponsor hopes to use the research to defend itself in litigation.
Sponsors of a study may involve themselves in the design, execution,
analysis, and write-up of a study. In extreme cases, they may carry out
the research and ghostwrite the article with almost no involvement from
the nominal author. Movie-style credits are advocated as a way to avoid this.
There are many opportunities for bias in trial design and trial
reporting. For instance, a trial that compares a drug against the wrong
dose of a competing drug may produce spuriously positive results.
In some cases, a contract with a sponsor may mean those named as
investigators and authors on the papers may not have access to the trial
data, control over the publication text, or the freedom to talk about
their work.
While authors and institutions have an interest in avoiding such
contracts, it conflicts with their interest in competing for funding
from potential study sponsors. Institutions that set stricter ethical standards for sponsor contracts lose contracts and funding when sponsors go elsewhere.
Sponsors have required contractual promises that the study is not reported without the sponsor's approval (gag clauses) and some have sued authors over compliance. Trials may go unpublished to keep commercial information secret or because the trial results were unfavourable. Some journals require that human trials be registered to be considered for publication; some require the declaration of any gag clauses as a conflict of interest; since 2001, some also require a statement that the authors have not agreed to a gag clause. Some journals require a promise to provide access to the original data to researchers intending to replicate the work. Some research ethics boards, universities, and national laws prohibit gag clauses. Gag clauses may not be legally enforceable if compliance would cause sufficient public harm. Non-publication has been found to be more common in industry-funded trials, contributing to publication bias.
It has been suggested that having many sponsors with different interests protects against COI-induced bias. As of 2006, there was no evidence for or against this hypothesis.
Effect on conclusions of research
There
is evidence that industry funding of studies of medical devices and
drugs results in these studies having more positive conclusions
regarding efficacy (funding bias).
A similar relationship has been found in clinical trials of surgical
interventions, where industry funding leads to researchers exaggerating
the positive nature of their findings. Not all studies have found a statistically significant relationship between industry funding and the study outcome.
Interests of research participants
Chronically
ill medical research participants report expectation of being told
about COIs and some report they would not participate if the researcher
had some sorts of COIs.[39]
With few exceptions, multiple ethical guidelines forbid researchers
with a financial interest in the outcome from being involved in human
trials.
The consent agreements entered into with study participants may
be legally binding on the academics but not on the sponsor, unless the
sponsor has a contractual commitment saying otherwise.
Ethical rules, including the Declaration of Helsinki, require the publication of results of human trials. participants in which are often motivated by a desire to improve medical knowledge. Patients may be harmed if safety data, such risks to patients, are kept secret. Duties to human-research participants can therefore conflict with interests in non-publication such as gag clauses.
Publication of COI declarations
Some journals place COI declarations at the beginning of an article but most put it in smaller print at the end.
Positioning makes a difference; if readers feel they are being
manipulated from the beginning of a text, they read more critically than
if the same feeling is produced at the end of a text.
According to the ICMJE, "each journal should develop standards
with regard to the form the [COI] information should take and where it
will be posted". It is often placed after the body of the article, just before the reference section. Some COI statements, like those of anonymous reviewers, may not be published at all. (see § COIs of peer reviewers) COI statements are sometimes paywalled so they are only visible to those who have paid for full text access. This is not considered ethical by the Committee on Publication Ethics.
In 2017 PubMed began including COI statements at the end of the abstract and before the body of the article
after receiving complaints that because COI declarations were only
included in full article texts, they often went unseen in paywalled
articles. Only COI statements that are appropriately formatted and tagged by the publisher are included.
Science journalism
rarely reports COI information from the academic article reported upon;
in some studies, fewer than 1% of stories included COI information.
False statements of COIs
Failure to disclose a conflict of interest may, depending on the circumstances, be considered a form of corruption or academic misconduct.
This article
is about the term for systematic corruption and thievery by the state or
state-sanctioned corruption. For a state with ties to or aid from
organized crime syndicates, see Mafia state.
Detail from Corrupt Legislation, painting by Elihu Vedder (1896)
Kleptocracy (from Greek κλέπτης kléptēs, "thief", κλέπτω kléptō, "I steal", and -κρατία -kratía from κράτος krátos, "power, rule") is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to appropriate the wealth of their nation, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population. Thievocracy means literally the rule by thievery and is a term used synonymously to kleptocracy.
One feature of political-based socioeconomic thievery is that there is
often no public announcement explaining or apologizing for
misappropriations, nor any legal charges or punishment levied against
the offenders.
Kleptocracy is different from plutocracy (rule by the richest) and oligarchy (rule by a small elite). In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors, or they simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates. Also, kleptocrats often export much of their profits to foreign nations in anticipation of losing power.
Characteristics
Kleptocracies are generally associated with dictatorships, oligarchies, military juntas, or other forms of autocratic and nepotist
governments in which external oversight is impossible or does not
exist. This lack of oversight can be caused or exacerbated by the
ability of the kleptocratic officials to control both the supply of
public funds and the means of disbursal for those funds.
Kleptocratic rulers often treat their country's treasury as a source of personal wealth, spending funds on luxury goods and extravagances as they see fit. Many kleptocratic rulers secretly transfer public funds into hidden personal numbered bank accounts in foreign countries to provide for themselves if removed from power.
Kleptocracy is most common in developing countries and collapsing nations whose economies are reliant on the trade of natural resources. Developing nations' reliance on export incomes constitute a form of economic rent
and are easier to siphon off without causing the income to decrease.
This leads to wealth accumulation for the elites and corruption may
serve a beneficial purpose by generating more wealth for the state.
In a collapsing nation, reliance on imports from foreign
countries becomes likely as the nation's internal resources become
exhausted, thereby contractually obligating themselves to trading
partners. This leads to kleptocracy as the elites make deals with
foreign adversaries to keep the status quo for as long as possible.
To some observers, a thievery society allows the politically connected to redirect wealth to those deemed worthier by state apparatchiks.
According to some pundits, one reason governmental bodies subscribe to
theft-prone policies is to lay the groundwork for the socialization of
labor and property in an effort to permit thievocrats to make the
populace "subservient to an institutionalized authority." Newspaper columnist Paul Greenberg, in writing against the idea of the United States sending large amounts of foreign aid to Poland
in 1989, argued that Poland was emerging from "40 years of a Communist
thievocracy that has obliterated not only economic progress but also the
idea of a modern economy."
A specific case of kleptocracy is Raubwirtschaft, German
for "plunder economy" or "rapine economy", where the whole economy of
the state is based on robbery, looting and plundering the conquered
territories. Such states are either in continuous warfare with their
neighbours or they simply milk their subjects as long as they have any
taxable assets. Arnold Toynbee has claimed the Roman Empire was a Raubwirtschaft.
Financial system
Contemporary studies have identified 21st century kleptocracy as a global financial system based on money laundering (which the International Monetary Fund has estimated comprises p2-5 percent of the global economy). Kleptocrats engage in money laundering
to obscure the corrupt origins of their wealth and safeguard it from
domestic threats such as economic instability and predatory kleptocratic
rivals. They are then able to secure this wealth in assets and
investments within more stable jurisdictions,
where it can then be stored for personal use, returned to the country
of origin to support the kleptocrat's domestic activities, or deployed
elsewhere to protect and project the regime's interests overseas.
Illicit funds are typically transferred out of a kleptocracy into Western jurisdictions for money laundering and asset security. Since 2011, more than $1 trillion has left developing countries annually in illicit financial outflows. A 2016 study found that $12 trillion had been siphoned out of Russia, China, and developing economies. Western professional services providers
are an essential part of the kleptocratic financial system, exploiting
legal and financial loopholes in their own jurisdictions to facilitate
transnational money laundering. The kleptocratic financial system typically comprises four steps.
First, kleptocrats or those operating on their behalf create anonymous shell companies
to conceal the origins and ownership of the funds. Multiple
interlocking networks of anonymous shell companies may be created and nominee directors appointed to further conceal the kleptocrat as the ultimate beneficial owner of the funds.
Second, a kleptocrat's funds are transferred into the Western
financial system via accounts which are subject to weak or nonexistent anti-money laundering procedures.
Third, financial transactions conducted by the kleptocrat in a
Western country complete the integration of the funds. Once a kleptocrat
has purchased an asset this can then be resold, providing a legally
defensible origin of the funds. Research has shown the purchase of luxury real estate to be a particularly favored method.
Fourth, kleptocrats may use their laundered funds to engage in reputation laundering, hiring public relations firms to present a positive public image and lawyers to suppress journalistic scrutiny of their political connections and origins of their wealth.
The United States is international kleptocrats' favoured jurisdiction for laundering money. In a 2011 forensic study of grand corruption cases, the World Bank found the United States was the leading jurisdiction of incorporation for entities involved in money laundering schemes. The Department of Treasury estimates that $300 billion is laundered annually in the United States.
This kleptocratic financial system flourishes in the United States for three reasons.
First, the absence of a beneficial ownership registry
means that it is the easiest country in the world in which to conceal
the ownership of a company. The United States produces more than 2
million corporate entities a year, and 10 times more shell companies
than 41 other countries identified as tax havens combined. It currently takes more information to obtain a library card than to form a US company.
Second, some of the professions most at risk of being exploited
for money laundering by kleptocrats are not required to perform due
diligence on prospective customers, including incorporation agents,
lawyers, and realtors. A 2012 undercover study found that just 10 of 1,722 U.S. incorporation agents
refused to create an anonymous company for a suspicious customer; a
2016 investigation found that just one of 13 prominent New York law
firms refused to provide advice for a suspicious customer.
Third, such anonymous companies can then freely engage in transactions without having to reveal their beneficial owner.
Montenegro's president Milo Đukanović was listed among the twenty richest world leaders according to the British newspaper The Independent in May 2010, which described the source of his wealth as "mysterious".
The vast majority of foreign transactions take place in US dollars.
Trillions of US dollars are traded on the foreign exchange market daily
making even large sums of laundered money a mere drop in the bucket.
Currently,
there are only around 1,200 money laundering convictions per year in
the United States and money launderers face a less than five percent
chance of conviction. Raymond Baker estimates that law enforcement fails in 99.9% of cases to detect money laundering by kleptocrats and other financial criminals.
Other
forms of a thievery society that can induce a "culture of systematic
fraud" has been described as "political and corporate kleptomania." In this case the plunder and looting enriches not only high government officials, but a narrow class of plutocrats,
who usually represent wealthy individuals and families who have amassed
great assets through the usage of political favoritism, special
interest legislation, monopolies, special tax breaks, state
intervention, subsidies or outright graft. This type of economic system
of political spoils is sometimes referred to as crony capitalism.
Effects
The effects of a kleptocratic regime or government on a nation are typically adverse in regards to the welfare of the state's economy, political affairs, and civil rights.
Kleptocratic governance typically ruins prospects of foreign investment
and drastically weakens the domestic market and cross-border trade. As
kleptocracies often embezzle money from their citizens by misusing funds
derived from tax payments, or engage heavily in money laundering schemes, they tend to heavily degrade quality of life for citizens.
In addition, the money that kleptocrats steal is diverted from
funds earmarked for public amenities such as the building of hospitals,
schools, roads, parks – having further adverse effects on the quality of
life of citizens. The informal oligarchy that results from a kleptocratic elite subverts democracy (or any other political format).
Examples
According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the first use in English occurs in the publication "Indicator" of 1819: "Titular ornaments, common to Spanish kleptocracy."
The political system in Russia was described as a Mafia state where president Vladimir Putin serves as the "head of the clan".
In early 2004, the German anti-corruption NGOTransparency International released a list of self-enriching leaders in the two decades previous to the report.
They did not know if these were the most corrupt and noted "very little
is known about the amounts actually embezzled". In order of amount
allegedly stolen USD, they were:
In
the early 21st century, charges of thievocracy have been leveled against
a number of corrupt African and third-world nations, particularly the
37-year rule of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The situation in Zimbabwe became so dire that The Zimbabwean
reported in 2010 that a number of nations imposed banking and travel
restrictions on Zimbabwe's government officials, to prevent "the
thievocracy from stashing away their ill-gotten gains."
In 2005, Wilf Mbanga referred to the confiscation of large tracts of
privately owned land and other assets in Zimbabwe as both a textbook
example of thievocracy and also a cause of unprecedented food shortages
and misery.
Narcokleptocracy
Demonstration banner with text in Czech: "Demokracie místo kleptokracie" (Democracy instead of kleptocracy). Peace rally in Brno for Real Democracy NOW, Moravian Square [cs], Brno, Czech Republic.
In 2020, the United States of America charged the unrecognized president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro with Drug Trafficking, as well as many officials and head figures of his administration.
In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity (see vicarious liability and corporate liability). For the worst corporate crimes, corporations may face judicial dissolution,
sometimes called the "corporate death penalty", which is a legal
procedure in which a corporation is forced to dissolve or cease to
exist.
Some negative behaviours by corporations may not actually be
criminal; laws vary between jurisdictions. For example, some
jurisdictions allow insider trading.
Corporate crime overlaps with:
white-collar crime, because the majority of individuals who may act as or represent the interests of the corporation are white-collar professionals;
organized crime, because criminals may set up corporations either for the purposes of crime or as vehicles for laundering the proceeds of crime. The world's gross criminal product has been estimated at 20 percent of world trade. (de Brie 2000); and
state-corporate crime because, in many contexts, the opportunity to commit crime emerges from the relationship between the corporation and the state.
No State shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The concepts of crime and punishment, as they apply to individuals, cannot be easily transferred to the corporate domain.
International treaties governing corporate malfeasance thus tend to
permit but not require corporate criminal liability. Recently a number
of countries and the European Union have been working to establish corporate criminal liability for certain offences."Liability of Legal Persons for Corruption Offences". 2021-05-13.
United States law currently recognizes corporate criminal capacity,
although it is extremely rare for corporations to be litigated in
criminal proceedings.
French law currently recognizes corporate criminal capacity.
German law does not recognize corporate criminal capacity: German
corporations are however subject to fining for administrative violations
(Ordnungswidrigkeiten)
Enforcement policy
Corporate crime has become politically sensitive in some countries. In the United Kingdom,
for example, following wider publicity of fatal accidents on the rail
network and at sea, the term is commonly used in reference to corporate manslaughter and to involve a more general discussion about the technological hazards posed by business enterprises (see Wells: 2001).
In the United States, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed to reform business practices, including enhanced corporate responsibility, financial disclosures, and combat fraud, following the highly publicized scandals of Enron, WorldCom, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and Bernie Madoff.
Company chief executive officer (CEO) and company chief financial
officer (CFO) are required to personally certify financial reports to be
accurate and compliant with applicable laws, with criminal penalties
for willful misconduct including monetary fines up to $5,000,000 and
prison sentence up to 20 years.
The Law Reform Commission of New South Wales offers an explanation of such criminal activities:
Corporate
crime poses a significant threat to the welfare of the community. Given
the pervasive presence of corporations in a wide range of activities in
our society, and the impact of their actions on a much wider group of
people than are affected by individual action, the potential for both
economic and physical harm caused by a corporation is great (Law Reform
Commission of New South Wales: 2001).
At one level, corporations develop
new technologies and economies of scale. These may serve the economic
interests of mass consumers by introducing new products and more
efficient methods of mass production. On another level, given the
absence of political control today, corporations serve to destroy the
foundations of the civic community and the lives of people who reside in
them.
Discussion
Criminalization
Behavior can be regulated by the civil law (including administrative law) or the criminal law. In deciding to criminalize particular behavior, the legislature is making the political judgment that this behavior is sufficiently culpable
to deserve the stigma of being labelled as a crime. In law,
corporations can commit the same offences as natural persons. Simpson
(2002) avers that this process should be straightforward because a state
should simply engage in victimology to identify which behavior causes the most loss and damage to its citizens, and then represent the majority view that justice
requires the intervention of the criminal law. But states depend on the
business sector to deliver a functioning economy, so the politics of
regulating the individuals and corporations which supply that stability
become more complex. For the views of Marxist criminology, see Snider (1993) and Snider & Pearce (1995), for Left realism, see Pearce & Tombs (1992) and Schulte-Bockholt (2001), and for Right Realism, see Reed & Yeager (1996). More specifically, the historical tradition of sovereign state control of prisons is ending through the process of privatisation.
Corporate profitability in these areas therefore depends on building
more prison facilities, managing their operations, and selling inmate
labor. In turn, this requires a steady stream of prisoners able to work.
(Kicenski: 2002)
Bribery and corruption
are problems in the developed world, and the corruption of public
officials is thought to be a serious problem in developing countries,
and an obstacle to development.
Edwin Sutherland's
definition of white collar crime also is related to notions of
corporate crime. In his landmark definition of white collar crime he
offered these categories of crime:
Misrepresentation in financial statements of corporations
One
paper discusses some of the issues that arise in the relationship
between private sector and corruption. The findings can be summarized as
follows:
They present evidence that corruption induces informality by
acting as a barrier to entry into the formal sector. Firms that are
forced to go underground operate at a smaller scale and are less
productive.
Corruption also affects the growth of firms in the private sector.
This result seems to be independent of the size of the firm. A channel
through which corruption may affect the growth prospects of firms is
through its negative impact on product innovation.
SMEs pay higher bribes as percentage of revenue compared with large
companies and bribery seems to be the main form of corruption affecting
SMEs.
Bribery is not the only form of corruption affecting large firms.
Embezzlement by a company's own employees, corporate fraud, and insider
trading can be very damaging to enterprises too.
There is evidence that the private sector has as much responsibility
in generating corruption as the public sector. Particular situations
such as state capture can be very damaging for the economy.
Corruption is a symptom of poor governance. Governance can only be
improved via coordinated efforts among governments, businesses, civil
society.
Organi-cultural deviance
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) pioneered the study of crime.
Organi-cultural deviance is a recent philosophical model used
in academia and corporate criminology that views corporate crime as a
body of social, behavioral, and environmental processes leading to
deviant acts. This view of corporate crime differs from that of Edwin
Sutherland (1949), who referred to corporate crime as white-collar crime,
in that Sutherland viewed corporate crime as something done by an
individual as an isolated end unto itself. With the Organi-cultural
deviance view, corporate crime can be engaged in by individuals, groups,
organizations, and groups of organizations, all within an
organizational context. This view also takes into account micro and
macro social, environmental, and personality factors, using a holistic
systems approach to understanding the causation of corporate crime.
The term derives its meaning from the words organization (a structured unit) and culture
(the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices). This
reflects the view that corporate cultures may encourage or accept
deviant behaviors that differ from what is normal or accepted in the
broader society.
Organi-cultural deviance explains the deviant behaviors (defined by
societal norms) engaged in by individuals or groups of individuals.
Because corporate crime has often been seen as an understudy of
common crime and criminology, it is only recently that the study of
corporate crime been included in coursework and degree programs directly
related to criminal justice, business management, and organizational
psychology. This is partly due to a lack of an official definition for
crimes committed in the context of organizations and corporations.
The social philosophical study of common crime gained recognition through Cesare Beccaria during the 18th century, when Beccaria was heralded as the Father of the Classical School of Criminology.
However, corporate crime was not officially recognized as an independent area of study until Edwin Sutherland provided a definition of white collar crime
in 1949. Sutherland in 1949, argued to the American Sociological
Society the need to expand the boundaries of the study of crime to
include the criminal act of respectable individuals in the course of
their occupation.
In 2008, Christie Husted found corporate crime to be a complex
dynamic of system-level processes, personality traits,
macro-environmental, and social influences, requiring a holistic
approach to studying corporate crime. Husted, in her 2008 doctoral
thesis, Systematic Differentiation Between Dark and Light Leaders: Is a Corporate Criminal Profile Possible?, coined the term organi-cultural deviance to explain these social, situational and environmental factors giving rise to corporate crime.
Application
Renée
Gendron and Christie Husted, through their research conducted in
2008-2012, expanded the concept of organi-cultural deviance, in papers
presented the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences conference Toronto,
Canada, the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Annual Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, the General Meeting of the
Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, in Regina, Saskatchewan,
Canada, and The Humanities conference in Montréal, Canada.
The term organi-cultural deviance incorporated the terms group think,
and yes-men, to explain decision-related cognitive impairments inherent
of corporations engaging in corporate crime. The researchers have found
several interconnected dynamics that increase the likelihood of
white-collar crime. The researchers have found specific group dynamics
involved in white collar crime are similar to the group dynamics present
in gangs, organized crime organizations as well as cults. Moreover, the
researchers have found that there are systems-level forces influencing
the behaviors and cognitions of individuals.
The subject of organi-cultural deviance was first taught in business management, leadership classes, and in a class titled Corporate Misconduct
in America, at Casper College during 2008-2009. Organi-cultural
deviance was introduced to students as a social philosophical term used
to help describe, explain, and understand the complex social,
behavioral, and environmental forces, that lead organizations to engage
in corporate crime.
Social dynamics
The term organi-cultural deviance was later expanded and published in a 2011 paper titled Socialization of Individuals into Deviant Corporate Culture.
Organi-cultural deviance was used to describe how processes of
individual and group socialization, within deviant corporate cultures,
serve to invert Abraham Maslow's (1954) Hierarchy of Needs into a theoretical "Hierarchical Funnel of Individual Needs".
Organi-cultural deviance was further explored by Gendron and Husted,
using a micro-environmental approach, identifying social dynamics
within deviant organizations believed to lure and capture individuals.
However, through the social processes inherent of organi-cultural
deviance, social pressures and influences force the individual to vacate
aspirations to reach self-actualization and become complacent on
satisfying lower needs, such as belongingness. In organi-cultural
deviance, social dynamics and micro-environmental forces are believed,
by Gendron and Husted, to result in the individual's dependence upon the
organization for their basic needs.
Organizations engaging in organi-cultural deviance use
manipulation and a façade of honesty, with promises of meeting the
individual's needs of self-actualization. The social forces such as the
use of physical and psychological violence to maintain compliance with
organizational goals within deviant organizations secure the
individual's dependence upon the organization for satisfaction of their
basic needs. As the process of organi-cultural deviance escalates, the
complacency to meet mid-level needs becomes a dependency on the
organization to satisfy the lower needs of the pyramid, the individual's
basic needs. In the paper Using Gang and Cult Typologies to Understand Corporate Crimes, Gendron and Husted
found organizations engaging in organi-cultural deviance used coercive
power, monetary, physical and/or psychological threats, to maintain
their gravitational hold on the individual.
In the 2011 paper, Using Gang and Cult Typologies to Understand Corporate Crimes,
organi-cultural deviance was used to compare the cultures of: mafias,
cults, gangs and deviant corporations, each of which was assumed to be a
type of deviant organization. In these types of organizations,
organi-cultural deviance was found to be present. In engaging in
organi-cultural deviance, these organizations leverage four resources:
information, violence, reputation and publicity. These types of
organizations engaging in organi-cultural deviance were found to contain
toxic leadership. Deviant organizations, engaging in organi-cultural
deviance, were found to leverage their reputation through publicity to
attract members. The combination of adverse psychological forces,
combined with the real need for its employees to survive (earn a living,
avoid bullying) act as a type of organizational gravitational pull. The
concept of organi-cultural deviance includes both micro (personal,
psychological or otherwise internal forces exercising influence over an
individual's behavior) and macro influences (group dynamics,
organizational culture, inter-organizational forces as well as system
pressures and constraints, such as a legal system or overall economic
environment).
Environmental influences
In a 2012 paper titled Organi-cultural Deviance: Economic Cycles Predicting Corporate Misconduct?, Gendron and Husted found economic cycles result in strain, seen as a precipitating factor in organi-cultural deviance.
Organi-cultural deviance is based on the premise social pressure and
economic forces exert strain on organizations to engage in corporate
crime. Strain creates motivating tension in organi-cultural deviance.
Robert Merton championed strain theorists in the field of criminology,
believing there to be "a universal set of goals toward which all
Americans, regardless of background and position, strive, chief among
these is monetary success". Economic cycles result in observable patterns which are indicative of organi-cultural deviance.
Organi-cultural deviance is likely to occur at different points
in an economic cycle and system. The specific location of an economy in
the economic cycle tends to generate specific kinds of leaders.
Entrepreneurial leaders tend to be most visible at the bottom of an
economic cycle, during a depression or recession. Entrepreneurial
leaders are able to motivate their employees to innovate and develop new
products. As the economy strengthens, there is a marked increased of
bureaucratic leaders who standardise and operationalise the successes of
entrepreneurial leaders. As the economy reaches the apex of the
economic cycle, pseudo-transformational leaders are likely to emerge,
promising the same, if not higher, rates of return in a booming or
peaking economy. Often, these pseudo-transformational leaders engage in
deviant practices to maintain the illusion of rising rates of return.
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